Memoir of an Artist

By Amitabh SenGupta

Memoir of an Artist is a compelling account of an unpredictable life that stretches through India, Nigeria, and Paris. As a student, he was a witness to the student revolt in Paris in 1968; in the seventies, he was in Nigeria observing the post-Biafra scenario as a teacher in the university. As a product of institutional education that shaped and groomed the new artists, he realizes the impact of Eurocentric dialogue on Indian art so imposing that it makes Indian art in perpetual transit. Again, in the process of creating dialogue within Kolkata life, author discovers contemporary art indeed has no social connectivity; thus, the educated progressive is unable to dialogue with the progressing art. Indian modernism has become a manufactured brand within art commerce, aligned to global marketing. Meanwhile, life has many spectrums, and the author has observed the modernistic agenda exists in contemporary art, as in many activities of Indian life, but each is like an island without connectivity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Jun 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781482821253

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Copyright © 2014 Amitabh SenGupta. All rights reserved.

………….

All pictures printed in this book are personal materials of the author.

Author is grateful to the following persons for giving permission to make citations:

Dr. Sanjoy Kumar Mallik, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Jose Villarreal, Editor, artdaily.org news

Prof. Ratan Parimoo, Director,

Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Museum, Ahmedabad

Other book by the same author:

Scroll Paintings of Bengal: art in the Village

ISBN

978-1-4828-2126-0 (sc)

978-1-4828-2125-3 (e)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

To order additional copies of this book, contact

Partridge India

000 800 10062 62

www.partridgepublishing.com/india

[e-mail]

06/26/2014

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Portals of Art Institutions

Times of Uncertainty – Calcutta ‘70

Soda Fountain of Calcutta

Paradigm of Art Education – Sermons and aura

Learning Art – station, slums and Anil Roy’s Studio

Quest with Pramiti Magazine, Adda in Soda Fountain Restaurant

Art Groups – conciliation and need

Antecedents of Art Groups

Madras Serendipity

Delhi – respite, hope and travesty

Ticket to Paris

Chapter 2

Nigeria—exploring the unknown

University of Port Harcourt

New Urban – syndromes and duality

Past that created the Present—rules of two Masters

Colonial Antecedents – religion, education, and administration

Post-Independence Events and Movements of art

New genre of Traditional art – rise of Tourist Art

The Ebb

Chapter 3

Paris Journal 1966—1969

The profile of a novice

Autumn in Paris

Cinematheque in Paris

Student Revolt of 1968

Chapter 4

The Travelogues

New York 2010

Revisiting Europe 2013

Chapter 5

Kolkata Apologue

Forum for Art and Research (FAR)

Chariot of Change – reign with gallery

Forming Art Trust

Fractured look of modernism – state of art and artist

The Ebb in Art Commerce

Alaka Apartment – my room

Epilogue

Indian Contemporary Art – an alternative modernity

Art and Alienation

Manufactured Crisis

General Album

Painting Album

List of General Album:

List of Painting Album:

To my mother

Kalpana Sengupta

and remembering

Prakash Karmakar, painter

Subrata Mitra, cinematographer

Prof. Ola Rotimi

Prologue

On my first visit to New York City in 1980, I was eager to see Picasso at the Museum of Modern Art since Guernica and all the preliminary canvases were on display. Few days later, I thought of visiting Metropolitan Museum of Art to see some of the trends from the past. On that day, after reaching the museum, the large vertical banners hanging in front of the building caught my attention, as it read Two Thousand Years of Nigerian Art. Indeed a surprise, as it became a coincidence that I was living in Nigeria for the past three years, and I was involved in teaching art in a university. The exhibition of Nigerian Art became an unexpected concurrence. However, I did not know then that this serendipity would take me to another journey of long and continuing introspections, on art and matters that are experiential.

The exhibition was in collaboration with the National Museum of Nigeria, in Lagos. The collections constituted magnificent art that the world had already noticed. The objects on display were traditional forms in terracotta, metal, stone, and wood. The images in the catalogue showed the familiar methods as prevalent in the living tradition of Nigeria, such as carving, painting, and adding assorted materials. In writing the catalogue, Dr. Ekpo Eyo, the director of the Federal Department of Antiquities in Lagos, clarified his particular stand in typical fashion that he was not a connoisseur of art, but an archaeologist/anthropologist. The reason that he avoided any reference to art was his assumption that he did not find any satisfactory definition of the word art. Therefore, he elucidated Nigerian Art within the archaeological and socio-cultural contexts. After underscoring the vague zone of art and accepting reliability of anthropological frame, he then raised a contentious issue about present Nigeria. This caught my attention. For instance, he observed that the introduction of European model of education through the colonial period had produced institutional art that was indistinguishable from those of the West. This trend might pose a threat to heritage art; as such, trends were already causing uncertainty. He hoped that whatever was valuable in ancient traditions would be preserved and found relevance in the new.

Was he reflecting conflict within change, or a simple apprehension? Living with change causes many feelings and a nagging fear that all familiar elements would vanish. Such doubts were common to a section of the society, since change was pervading all aspects of life creating both insularity and freedom. My reflections are not on this dilemma but to observe the social consequences; specifically, the internal gap in religious communication ultimately alienated the practice of traditional art in institutions. There is a difference between informed choice and insularity to resist any change. Which would be the larger group? Again, my thoughts drifted to contemplate in another zone: removed from the dust and haze of Nigerian life, the ethnic context in Metropolitan exhibition was now only in texts, to be read, to see objects as evidence of culture. This is a contrary proposition. The meaning of these objects was within the use, the totality of function within village festivities. Once the festive event was over, the object carried no other meaning. They would be left to decay and perish, and then new form would be created, when time came. The mask without the Masquerade, without the dust and haze of village, but seen isolated in the museum, were an imagined idea of Nigeria’s culture. The context of transience and recurrence could not be understood in their static presence on museum pedestal. Isolated from the life, the objects now manifested glorious art beyond all other considerations.

Sooner I was thinking about the incompleteness of social dialogue even though art is omnipresent in everything that man makes; separated only by artistic excellence. Within an age-old social context, it has no dilemma, but the known object becomes vague when intervened with alien meanings. As we see, the modern paradigms divided it into specialized areas and art seemed to have lost its natural space. Art is bound within hermetic classifications; such as tribal art, primitive art, classical art, fine art, or minor art; besides, there is a pseudo hierarchical order of importance according to social level. Now art that is internal to colonial cultures, realized within new Eurocentric interpretations. Fundamentally, eclectic frame has no opposition with any social context but it places the purity of art on the fore. However, as such information would have varied meanings within traditional perceptions, institutional education has a larger role to create new discourse. Therefore, for the post-colonial cultures the need is more urgent to become an active audience to her own emerging art. For the meaning of modernism, the world has shared as the frame is the culmination of exchange between Europe and the rest of us. We had shared the deal that shaped us to present, but our roles had been largely as receiver. The incongruity it affects is also real. As the borderline between the West and us has already collapsed, we are in perpetual transit with the updating process. The concept of nation or nationalism would be a bad theoretical notion. Despite, having dissolved the old blameful binary, the colonizer, and the colonized, we are yet to re-arrange between the traditional views and global eclectic frame.

My thoughts lingered on manufactured paradigms, which created the endless gaps to view art; for instance, in India. From the time institutional art categorized as colonial process, it automatically created a sense of otherness in Indian mind. They could not put the entity of educated artists in a proper slot of social existence. The situation did not change and alienation increased the feeling of despair and hopelessness affecting the life of the educated artists. As the stamp of otherness never gone, we became irrelevant. The paradox is, new art is still the social creativity extended to another phase as events compelled.

Being a painter and claiming space engulfed me within a chain of realities and social responses. However, I would offer an exploration with my experiential moments that, for the most part, have desperation, agony and the travesty; this would be similar for most artists. In a way, my journals would be like empirical data to reflect on the present situation with art. The idea of this memoir is not to construe a meaning, but the meanings to emerge. My observations and experiences in Nigeria also had a ringing in my memory from my own antecedents in India. The two nations bound within a common historicity of British Colonial system and still carried the residual environments. However, I would like to evolve beyond this frame, and simultaneously watch the flow of events as they are. Within issues and discussions, logic and interpretations, my priority remains same, not to miss the spectrums that are always there at each stage of my sojourns. I may not be consistent with my views since time created dispositions and affected interpretations. I intend to walk like an anonymous pedestrian through my experienced moments, change course and stop a while, pause and resume. I have no paradigm to follow, but the emotion that also carried the needs of many artists in shared space. At the same time, I am aware that this journey has no haven to rest, to find a single truth, but units of existence. Nigeria, Paris, or India, is like color to flow, intermix, and create my canvas, but retracing a span of time so far away, from now, would be no less than seeing through the haze.

It was Harmattan, full of dust haze when I arrived in Nigeria, in 1977, three days after I spent Christmas in Paris. Now our flight was trying to land in Lagos Airport. I was wondering about the absurdity of my life. Nigeria was not within my horizon, but that reality was moments away. I need to retrace this phase, between 1970 until 1977 as it would construe the sequence, why Nigeria

Chapter 1

Portals of Art Institutions

Like any child, art was natural for me, but over the years, accents accumulated and art became an environment. From the time I became aware, about the reality of being artist, I began observing social responses. It did not take long to realize that the identity of the artist in my society would be a vague proposition. It reflected when many of my relatives were disappointed that after Science, I joined Art College, not Architecture. Painting was no more than a child’s practice, but at adult stage, it would be whiling away time; for that matter, the relevance of a Doctor, Engineer, or an Advocate, had more acceptances. Then, with larger visibility, and popularity, society had continuous attention with music, dance, or cinema. Visual art has no such claim in a society like ours. The contemplation of art needs a conscious development of cognitive habit, supported by information, which is a process outside the elementary response to beauty. In the traditional sense, society would recognize a potter, a village bard, a blacksmith, or a Sthapati and so on. The urban artist did not fall within any such activities. Consequently, as art became vague, society did not know how to accommodate its professional environment. The general response of educated urban remained within traditional habits, not able to appreciate within artistic merits. When I was young, I used to become upset, took it as limitations of people around me. However, my logic changed, and I seemed to me a continuing fault in disseminating knowledge. During my early days, exhibitions of art were few and that too in major cities. My school days spent in small towns, which were not more than a village those days. I used to see child art or some seniors’ past time effort, doing portraits of Vivekananda, Nazrul, or Rabindranath, bit of noble choice. However, all these became little matters. There was no such occasion to view painting or sculpture, though I heard the name of Abanindranath and Jamini Roy. People enjoyed seeing advertisements, Cinema banners, or becoming attracted to newspaper cartoons. It would be an exception if a middle class family adorned the wall with a painting, not of a deity; except for some affluent houses where a portraiture of grandfather, done in oil, might still be hanging on the wall; unobserved and hardly maintained for years. Walls and desktop in middle class homes, in Bengal, have a typical import with calendars of deities, or Ramakrishna-Rabindranath-Vivekananda and photographs of family, children, and such items. The sense of decor had variations but more or less similar. Art was a required activity in school and rest remained trivial. Given this environment, it is impossible to reason I should be interested to art. I loved painting on my own and members encouraged without giving much importance to it until later. It was in Cooch Behar that I started reading articles in Bengali journals about the art trends. My first experience of seeing painting was in a Tufangunje, a small sub-division town of Cooch Behar. A graduate artist returned home after his studies in Santiniketan. I was amazed looking at his wash-paintings on paper. I could feel the pleasure was running through my body. However, my next experience within two years was indeed one of a rare and left a greater impact. I had a glimpse of the wonder world of European trends, Bengal School, and academic portraitures at the Maharaja of Cooch Behar’s palace collections. I was then studying in Jenkins School, the last stage of high school. Although there was no art subject, my self-learning increased my proficiency. That year, in 1955, I received an award in a local competition and ‘Bhugu Sahib’ was the judge. He was a painter, contemporary to J.P. Ganguly in Art College and artist-in-charge of the palace collections. Like my History teacher in Jenkins School, Bhugu Saheb also gave me encouragement, so I often showed them my works. On the day, when Maharaja was in Europe, Bhugu Saheb took me to show the palace. I was awestruck, as if I was in a wonder world. I did not know that art could have such range of variations, from oil paintings of European Realist School, wash-paintings of Bengal School, work of Abdur Rahman Chughtai, and the amazing landscapes on Chinese Vase. One room was full of family portraiture in oils.

Towards the end of my high school, I met two students of Art College, who came home during summer vacation. They used to sketch outdoors, going around the town. I observed their methods. However, after leaving school, I did not go to Art College immediately; I studied science for two more years, in Victoria College. Nevertheless, I started painting more vigorously gathering any information on art I found in Sahitya Sabha, a well-equipped library next door. However, I could not share my involvement, discuss art with anybody else; an elder once told me, ‘if you can draw Tamarind leaves, without seeing, you are an artist, don’t copy’. I also heard, at different stages ‘a genius is destined to suffer, like a Van Gogh.’ I understood I had to find my ways that might be a zone lonelier.

My dream expanded and focused on art. After Science, I went to Art College in Calcutta and completed the five years schedule, from 1959 until 1963. Immediately after graduation, I went to Delhi and found work with Handicrafts Board. I had my first solo show at All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society, in 1965. Same year, I joined Calico Mills as Textile Designer and went to Ahmadabad. However, after receiving training in textile design, I realized the factory environment was rather uninspiring. Every day the security used to search us at the gate and the Art Director once came to my room, to check if I were using office materials for my painting works. It was the rule though, but I did not like being a suspect. Despite the wonderful experience with designs, explorations in Calico Museum, I decided to leave the job. However, the Textile museum left a store of ideas for me. Leaving a job, I arrived in Delhi, with my small luggage and paintings. ‘I knew,’ a prompt comment was from my amused Aunt, as soon as she saw me. My three young cousins were excited speculating days with my company. This time in Delhi, I found a job in a small advertising studio. The boss was an interesting person, Satyen Mitra, who taught me about adverting designs and creating visuals. Computer had not come yet, so all artworks had to be done by hand as close as print, up to letterings; my proficiency with freehand drawing came handy. Working with advertising shined my skill in many ways, which eventually reflected with my paper works. Meanwhile, with my first salary, I booked the upper gallery at the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society in New Delhi; it would be my second solo in 1966. I spent my full salary in art materials, and it did not occur to me that I should have sent some amount to Baba. Neither, Baba ever asked for it. ‘Any small amount is a help in the house,’ once Ma told me. As I spent my salary already, I used to walk back from office in Connaught Place to Gangaram Hospital Road. I would then sit with my paintings in a small annex room. The boards and canvases of my works started to fill with doodling and scribbling. Calcutta walls, a memory transformed into my visual forms. Calcutta looked surreal carrying jumble of messages, and superimposed with assorted advertisements. Walls reflected life and the immediate situation. Graffiti formed structures in my work, but this time, carrying my personal thoughts. The writings often bore statements that actually emerged from addas; besides, these writings were like daily notes, sometimes insertion of employment ads reflecting my days searching work. As texts filled the space, they created texture of darker lines, and forms. On one canvas, I only handwrote the poem written by Sukanto Bhattacharya that inspired me so often; the poem on the canvas was the idea and the text as form. It attracted the writer-poet Joytirindra Moitra, a versatile person, and the Secretary in Sahitya Kala Academy. He became very emotional when he saw this painting. More than the painting, the emotion was probably for the memory of Sukanto who was his friend; besides, the poem was his favorite too. I wonder if he saw the painting I meant. As the doodles on my canvases were readable, many viewers were amused, made jokes, and some were fascinated, ‘why are you writing instead of painting?’ Nevertheless, the show drew attention from some of the senior artists in Delhi, even though art critic Charles Fabri could not conclude about my intent using script. I was intrigued when a senior artist, Bimal Dasgupta asked me if I had ever seen K. S. Panikkar’s works. No, I had not noticed his works until then, in 1966, but sooner saw his works in the National Akademi Annual Show. Panikkar’s large paintings, ‘Words and Symbols,’ were on display. I was very impressed seeing another possibility with ‘words’ and I found the courage in what I was doing.

My show at AIFACS had a windfall as a seminar was going on in the next room; during recess, many of the members entered the quieter part in my exhibition hall with teacup in hand; after chatting among themselves, they left the teacups behind, on the floor. I observed none of them came to watch paintings. I was very annoyed and pursued some of them not to leave cups behind; they apologized. Little later, I was surprised to see Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan, entering with another person, fortunately not cup in hand. She was an eminent scholar, once a classical dancer and now adviser to Ministry of Education. As she looked for the artist, I approached sheepishly and introduced myself. She bought one of my works for the Ministry. I was thrilled as it was my first sale after college. More than money, there was lot of lies, ego, and prejudice among artists about a sale; sale was a boost to the ego, offered brighter status among friends. A sale being seen as success, some artists inflated the amount to impress. Even in social circle, sale of the painting was a measure of success. There used to be imaginary sale too, with red marks on the canvas in advance. However, within a couple of months, I met Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan once again; this time she was chairing the selection Board for the French Government Scholarships, and I was a candidate. I remember the day of the interview. I had a high fever, and I called my longtime friend Madhusudan Kushari to come and help; he called an Auto Rickshaw, carried me to the interview and my large paintings. I shivered in the cool AC-room, but I saw the expression of artist Ramkumar, the art Expert in the panel, who was going through my paintings. Then I saw Kapilaji, watching me with a smile. The signs were all there. Was it a coincidence or my destiny was already set on a course? Finally, I was selected for the French Government Scholarship. However, the period of waiting for the final letter to come was no less agonizing. It was most harassing following through the formalities. In the process, I had to miss the wedding of Kaku, my younger uncle. I was very attached to him. However, I geared up to launch my career as a painter, with the dream of Paris, for that matter. In the same year, two senior painters, Sudhiranjan Bhusan and Himmat Shah, received Fellowships for a shorter time in Paris. As our preparation required, we joined the audio-visual program to learn French at the Alliance Francaise in New Delhi. The program added further agony, as the Director was never satisfied with our pronunciations. Finally, my tryst with Paris was complete in the autumn of 1966. Sitting by the wide glass window of the City Coach, I absorbed Paris, on my way from the airport to the city center, was it Invalid? To my pleasant surprise, Jogen Chowdhury came to receive me. He found about my arrival from the scholarship office. He was two years senior in Art College. He came to Paris a year earlier with scholarship, along with Dipak Banerjee and Suhas Roy. Sooner, as we did not know anybody, Bhusan, Himmat and me gathered at Jogen’s studio frequently. They left after a year, and I shifted to Maison de l’Inde, for the next two years. In 1968, Prakash Karmakar and Bimal Banerjee came from Calcutta. Vishwanathan and Akkita Narayan both graduated from Madras also came to Paris same year. Anju Chowdhury was in London, with Commonwealth Scholarship. Paris will need another chapter from my journal, in the later part.

Towards the end of 1969, Arun Bose came to Paris. We were talking in Bimal’s studio. He said to me, avoiding Bimal ‘Look, I am going to New York, with Fulbright Fellowship and my post in Art College would be vacant temporarily. Why don’t you apply? I have already talked about you to Principal, Chintamoni Kar.’ Within few days, Ruth helped me to type a letter. After a month, I received an answer from Chintamoni Kar; he asked me to see him whenever I was back in Calcutta. As I thought life was full of hope, I did not know that my days of uncertainty about to begin.

Times of Uncertainty – Calcutta ‘70

At the end of my studies, and returning from Paris, I took a long detour via Zurich and Berlin. The Berlin Wall at Brandenburg Gate was a tragic sight of War. Besides, I wanted to visit the museums. My last stop was Istanbul visiting Hagia Sophia and the museum, after crossing the Bosporus. It was fascinating in Istanbul since it is the only city in the world to straddle two continents, and again, was the capital during two consecutive empires—Christian and Islamic. I took the Bosphorus Cruise in the rough sea; Laila Tecer was not home in Princes Island. I was never tired of travelling. How old was I, twenty-eight? Three years in Paris, was like a dream, as if, I woke up to find my familiar room in Chetla.

Predicament started as soon as I arrived in Calcutta Airport and took a taxi to Bithi’s place in Shibpur. I had to cross the Howrah Bridge on the Ganges, to reach Shibpur. Howrah and Calcutta are the twin cities on both sides of the Ganges, exchanging urban life. As the taxi entered more into the city, my excitement gradually turned to uneasiness. The Strand Road was all broken; some of the streets in Dalhousie blocked with garbage. Crossing the familiar G.T. Road was more of a shock; the heaps of garbage blocking access and the stench were unbearable; the signs of degradation telling me another story. It took some time to register that I had not returned to my familiar world; something indeed had changed. Nobody ever wrote to me about the political mayhem. I had a numb feeling if this would be a premonition of my life in Calcutta. With no mental preparedness, the shock took away my strength. I thought that everybody wrote asking my life abroad, but nobody thought it important to mention the present developments in Bengal. I could not believe that Calcutta would be in such a state, it took hours and hours to take a ride by bus, even for few kilometers. Every day newspapers gave gruesome events. In one estimate, over hundred thousand young people lost their lives in the city alone; most of them were high school and university students. Violence and political opportunism obliterated everything I knew about Calcutta.

With all such uncertainties, my safety became another concern for Bithi. I was staying with her and the visits of my European friends, whom I had invited earlier, caused another tension. The turmoil had its shadow in a neighborhood like Shibpur; any white person would be taken as American and those days, all Americans were suspected as CIA agents. My European friends fell victim of this paranoia and had to go through unwarranted situations. But Erwin was the worst sufferer who visited me in Calcutta, and several times in Shibpur. The local group became more and more suspicious about me as well. On the evening, while returning from Soda Fountain, a group of young men surrounded my Rickshaw, the Puller vanished in the darkness of load shading. Full of arrogance, one of them started interrogating me, ‘who are these Americans coming to you?’ It was providence that I heard a voice from the dark, someone called me ‘Hi, Amit, when did you return?’ Madan was an old friend and known